Wednesday, 9 December 2015

Holly Woodlawn, a transgender actress who achieved underground stardom with her affecting performance as a starry-eyed down-and-outer in the 1970 Andy Warhol film “Trash,” died on Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 69. Forever memorialized in the 1972 Lou Reed song “Walk on the Wild Side.” It begins: Holly came from Miami F-L-A, Hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A., Plucked her eyebrows on the way, Shaved her legs and then he was a she. The song is legendary... She had some success as a cabaret artist in the late 1970s, appearing at Reno Sweeney in Manhattan, but by the end of the decade she was back in Miami, bussing tables at a Benihana restaurant and working for her father’s tax business. She relocated to West Hollywood in the 1990s and had occasional cameo roles in films like “Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss” in 1998 and, in 2014, the Amazon television series “Transparent.” “I felt like Elizabeth Taylor,” Ms. Woodlawn told The Guardian in 2007, recalling her heyday. “Little did I realize that not only would there be no money, but that your star would flicker for two seconds and that was it. But it was worth it, the drugs, the parties; it was fabulous.” R.I.P Holly you were fabulous!!!!